I received fan mail today. sort of. it came from university of missouri student, alex taft, and it was forwarded to me by the editor of the MU student news. it read:

> Hi Sarah

>

> Hey, I don't know michael dixon or how to get in touch

> with him, but I just wanted to let you know that I

> really like his comic. it is consistently humorous.

> you can forward this to him.

isnt that neat? well, I think so.

also, everyone secretly wishing that I would have written a special online-exclusive halloween edition of gloompuppy, please direct your letters of complaint to Dr. Sally Goldman and Dr. William Smart. I had hoped to write just such a comic for you all today, but because of my 441 homework (special note to all wash u cs majors: do NOT take this class) and my 550 take-home midterm (special note to Dr. Smart: do NOT give such hard take-home midterms), I was unable to do so. Im sorry; I would have loved to spend the day drawing a comic strip, but instead I spent it doing theoretical computer science problems and debugging a robot simulator. something I will be spending the rest of the night (as well as much of the early morning) on.

sigh.. back to work, I guess.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 31 October 2001 at 10:03 PM

It's only for one day; we'll be back to normal tomorrow. I promise. You see, I haven't been sleeping well recently, so when I woke up early this morning, I decided to throw a Halloween theme up. It seemed like a better idea than staying in bed for two or three hours, unable to sleep, which is what I've done the past few mornings.

The only thing I need to get done today is the robotics midterm, which I suspect will be unbelievably time-consuming. But I think I should be able to get it done before I go to the Sum 41 concert tonight.

Now it's time for a shower, since my alarm clock just went off, a full 2 1/2 hours after I got up. (Hurrah for insomnia!)

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 31 October 2001 at 10:15 AM

I've been sitting here in my computer graphics class for a bit more than an hour at this point. To tell the truth, I can't imagine a more boring way to spend an hour. But I need to be here because I want to ask Professor Grimm a question about the lab I turned in last night. But this is so boring. I can't even explain how boring this is. All of which begs the question: why am i even considering taking advanced graphics?

I picked up my registration materials yesterday, and there are a lot of CS classes I want to take, but I really can't sign up for five or six CS classes. Not if I want to pass any of them, anyway. Which I guess is a good arguement for hanging around for another year, getting my MS, and taking a lot of cool classes. Tough decisions to make in the next couple of months.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 30 October 2001 at 11:26 PM

I hate my robotics class. I used to like it, but I just now started hating it. every since he handed out the take home midterm. bleh..

I wonder how hard it would be to program my robot to kill..

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 30 October 2001 at 7:10 PM

We've added a special fortune to the -273 Electronic Fortune Cookie. The first person who gets the special fortune as their daily fortune and emails us at zero@negative273.com with the special code included in fortune will win a lovely prize. Possibly a (not yet designed) -273 sticker, along with other random things we think will make a suitable prize.

Just as a reminder, the Electronic Fortune Cookie is available through the Features page, which is linked from the top of all pages here at -273. The fortunes are randomly generated, and change once per day (at midnight EST), so be sure to stop by at least once a day, lest you miss a chance at our super prize.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 30 October 2001 at 12:31 AM

aaron better be more careful about the date/time headings on his posts, or people are going to think that he has lost the contest. also, aaron should note that the 28th was not a friday. neither was the 27th for that matter. oh well. I guess its clear that negative273 cares more about quality than other sites.

also, the new gloompuppy is up. (damn, could I plug that site any more than I already do?) go look. I think its my best yet.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 29 October 2001 at 10:10 PM

my hand hurts. I have been drawing for hours, and Im finally ready to start scanning in the images. its a labor of love, though, so I cant complain. although Id prefer if it was a labor of money. lots and lots of money. but oh well. the art for this new comic is looking pretty good so far. lets hope it scans well.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 28 October 2001 at 7:15 PM

so the halloween party last night was terrible. the house was small and super crowded, and it was way too cold to stand around outside. but this is good news, because everyone I was with agreed that it was terrible, so we didnt have to stay. since I probably wasnt going to have a good time even if the house wasnt super crowded, this was good news to me. we went to steak n shake instead, and it was good, except we were still wearing our costumes. this wasnt so bad for rachel, because she went an emo-girl, so she basically looked like she was getting dinner after a "sleater-kinney" concert. but this guy we were with went as neo from the matrix, so it looked like he was getting dinner after shooting up a highschool. kaity went as crack-whore barbie, so she looked like she was, well, a drug-addicted prostitute. and ryan went as an eighties workout instructor, so he just looked dumb. as for myself.. well, it would probably have leaked out through ouranophobe anyway, so I might as well tell you.. I went as alan from gloompuppy. a little embarassing, but I figure I have to do what it takes to promote my new comic. also rachel really wanted me to. I think she just wanted to see me in eyeliner.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 27 October 2001 at 3:35 PM

I got the electronic fortune cookie done. It's available through the features section. At michael's suggestion, it will only give each viewer one randomly selected fortune each day. In CS-speak, this means that I seeded the random number generator with a combination of the day's date and the viewer's IP address. This ensures that different viewers get different fortunes (the IP address part of the seed), and that the fortune they get is constant throughout the day (the date part of the seed). Because I don't control the date on the server, I wasn't able to do extensive tests on this, so send me an email if you notice any bugs.

All of the fortunes are taken directly from fortune cookies, so don't complain to me if the fortune you get makes little or no sense. My favorite in that category is the fortune that says "We are very happy together." When I got that fortune, I wasn't sure who the other part of the "we" was, and I still don't know.

Anyway, I hope you like the electronic fortune cookie. If you have ideas for improving it, send me an email or leave us a note in the guestbook.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 26 October 2001 at 11:25 PM

dave thinks that this will be the weekend where I lose the contest to aaron. dave doesnt have much confidence in me. of course, neither do 24 other people. sigh..

in other news, my neck hurts. also, Im trying to decide if there should be a special halloween episode of gloompuppy. Im sort of in the middle of a ongoing story, and I already had the next comic planned out, but when I realized that it was halloween this wednesday I thought maybe gloompuppy should break out of its current thread in order to have a halloween comic. do you think it should? if so, know any good halloween jokes?

let me know.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 26 October 2001 at 2:31 PM

Well, Chris and I ended up spending about four hours working on our robot last night. It works pretty well, but when I woke up this morning, I thought of some minor improvements we can make to the code. I'm telling you all about the robot because I didn't get a chance to work on any of the -273 things I wanted to work on last night. The list of things to write now includes a generic poll interface, because michael (perhaps enamored of the current poll) wants to have regular polls of our readers. It shouldn't take more than a few minutes to make a couple of different poll pages that we can then use as templates for making weekly polls. I also want to work on the project I alluded to in my last post, an electronic fortune cookie, today.

The robot and those other two things are three of the four things on my list for today. But now I need to go to the first of the four, the meeting of the CEC Mail Advisors Board.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 26 October 2001 at 11:38 AM

rachel just sent me an IM telling me to post in capital letters. by that I mean that her IM message was "POST," not that she wanted me to turn the caps lock on during my next post.

but I havent much of an idea of what to post about. so I will tell you about what I have planned for this evening. I must: work on my robotics lab, comment some more of my face-finding code for cindy, and design a sticker for negative273.

this weekend I am going to columbia, and Im probably going to end up attending a halloween party with rachel, who has promised that we wont have to stay more than two hours. I am going to hold her to that, because I think 2 hours of halloween party is probably already past my limit. also, if I do go in costume, she will need to recognize that I am doing it entirely for her and she should consider it a big favor. a giant favor.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 25 October 2001 at 9:32 PM

I have an idea for a new item for the features section of -273. If robot coding doesn't take too long tonight, I should be able to get it coded up and online tonight. If working on our mobile robot takes too long, I may not have a chance to get it done until next week, when my graphics lab will no longer be looming over me.

Over the past two days, the nickd mailing list has generated 209 messages. I made it through the first 100 or so, but then I just started deleting them. As much as I love wasting time on the Internet, I just couldn't handle reading fifty messages every time I sat down at my computer. Fortunately, the pace seems to have slowed down a bit today, so I am once again able to keep up with the various threads.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 25 October 2001 at 10:47 AM

I feel so much better now that I have a haircut. those of you who know me probably know that I needed one pretty badly. I finally look like myself again. I also paid my phone bill, and some mail that Ive been waiting on for a while finally arrived. so it was a productive day.

but in other more interesting news, I am meeting with the people from cadenza (the school arts and entertainment paper) this evening to give them the first gloompuppy comic. I sent them a link to the the gloompuppy site, and they said that they were "very much interested" in using my comic. so after a year or two of thinking "I should have a comic in the cadenza," Im actually going to. so those readers living in the wash u area should be sure to check out cadenza tomorrow.

anyway, I really should eat something before work. Im going to go do that now.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 24 October 2001 at 5:07 PM

damn. its only 12:45, and aaron already has his post for the day. I hate that. now I cant keep checking his site all day hoping that hell forget to post and that his precious dollar will be mine.

of course my days post is out of the way now, too. fun.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 23 October 2001 at 12:51 AM

I received an email today (you might be able to guess who it was from) that read :

Subject: gloompuppy

I waited a week for the new comic, but when I went to look for it today,

it wasn't there. I guess I'll have to wait another week to see a new

gloompuppy comic.

well, mr impacienty-pants, its there now. and Id like you to know that everyone here at gloompuppy.negative273.com apologizes sincerely for not building their schedules entirely around yours. we thank you for reading, and we hope you continue to enjoy gloompuppy.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 22 October 2001 at 2:02 PM

I had a bit of a cold all weekend, as I think I mentioned here earlier, and it kept me from getting as much of the Computer Graphics lab done as I would have liked. I don't really have time tonight or tomorrow to work on it, but I think I'll use my empty afternoon on Wednesday to catch up. Then I can devote Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to finishing the damn thing. If it weren't for this one lab, this would be a pretty easy week for me. The Prob Stats assignment is very short this week, and my only other assignment is a one-page paper for my English class, and I wrote two-thirds of that last night.

At the Just Add Water concert on Friday a demo disc was forced on me when I bought a tshirt. I already have a copy of the demo and own the CD that all of the demo tracks are from, so if anyone wants a three-track Just Add Water CD, let me know. The only caveat is that I'm going to ask you to use the guestbook to request it. Yes, I am bribing people to use the guestbook. I figure it's a pretty good way to get people to start using it. (Of course, all this could become rather embarassing if no one uses it after I offer to give them a CD.)

As I've been sitting here in the Cupples II Attic typing this, a kid sitting two computers down from me got out of his chair, stretched out on the floor, and went to sleep. Why would you sleep on the floor when there are couches at the other end of the room? I guess he wants to stay near the computer he was using, which still has his work on the screen. Hmm. . . I wonder if I can work on his computer without waking him up?

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 22 October 2001 at 12:38 PM

I bet I had aarons hopes up for a minute there. but no, I am not remiss in my posting duties, only busy. I spent much of my day working on the next gloompuppy comic, and as soon as I finished I had to run off to a group meeting for 342. thus there was very little time for posting. but now that the meeting is over, I can tell you all about my day. no, in fact, I can tell you all about my weekend. (dave was commenting today about how my last couple of posts seemed to lack content, so heres some content for you)

as you know, rachel came to visit this weekend, and I just thought I would report that we had a lovely time. as you perhaps recall, we went to six flags. I had already been there rather recently (over labor day), so it wasnt as exciting for me as it could have been, but it seemed exciting to rachel, so that more than made up for it. unfortunately, the lines were much longer than the last time we went, but I guess that was to be expected. at least the weather was nice.

but speaking of lines, while in line at the metal detector, some creepy woman tried to sell us tickets. she had the same kind of passes that scotts dad had given us when we went over labor day, so I figured it probably wasnt a scam. but all the same, she was creepy, and her cigarette smelled bad, so I wanted her to leave. I tried to explain to her that we already had coupons to get into the park for $19.99, so it didnt make sense for us to buy passes from her for $20. I suggested she attempt to sell them to someone else, that way more people would be able to get the reduced rate, since we didnt actually need it. she did not understand at all. she actually looked offended that we didnt appreciate her offer. she really had no right to be upset, though. I mean its not like I said, "hey lady, please go away. you are creepy and you smell bad. leave me and my girlfriend alone." of course maybe she could read minds. that might have been it.

anyway, its getting dangerously close to the deadline, and Im starting to have these visions of the internet going down, or the computer Im on crashing, so Id better post this. (Im sure dave has already written me off.) I know I said I was going to tell you all about my weekend, and I didnt really get to everything I could have said, but while it was enjoyable for me, it probably doesnt make an exciting story, so theres no real loss.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 21 October 2001 at 11:41 PM

I have a cold, so I took some Tylenol Cold in the hope of relieving my congestion. Well, the congestion is gone, but now my stomach is queasy and I feel very doped up.

I spent about four hours in the CEC working on graphics today, but I don't think I got much accomplished. I'll go back tomorrow and try to get a bit more done. Hopefully I won't be feeling quite as groggy then.

I was going to pound out an English paper tonight, but given the way I feel, I'm going to put it off until tomorrow.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 20 October 2001 at 10:00 PM

does it bother anyone else that "american standard" is a brand of toilet? I cant be the only one.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 20 October 2001 at 3:18 AM

If you value your free time, you will not visit this site or play the game located at said site.

Oh, and the show was cool. 'Night.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 20 October 2001 at 2:39 AM

Just Add Water tonight, Computer Graphics tomorrow and Sunday and Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and Saturday and Sunday. We have to finish this lab to pass the course, and I'm hoping nine days is enough time to get it done. Also, somewhere in there I have to work on a robot for robotics and write up a proposal for our final robotics project. And do some Prob Stats. And write an English paper. The next nine days will not be fun. I think I may write that English paper tonight when I get back from jaw. It only needs to be a page.

We've had a good number of people using the little script to vote on who they think is going to win the contest between michael and aaron. michael told me that he thinks aaron is trying to rig the voting. I told michael not to be ridiculous, then when he left I opened up my browser and placed another vote for aaron.*

Anyway, off I go to see Just Add Water. If anyone else wants to go, the show is at the HiPointe.

* just kidding, of course. I have been very impartial in this little contest. If I weren't so lazy, I would check the server logs to see exactly who has cast votes, but that is much more work than I feel like doing right now.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 19 October 2001 at 8:39 PM

ah, I post today from a nice clean room (sort of).

you guessed it, rachel is over. shes finally visiting me for a change, so I of course had to clean up for the first time in months. we are going to six flags tomorrow with some of her friends. tonight we are probably going to see training day. I have heard good things about that movie.

anyway, I just thought I should get my posting out of the way. and now it is. bye.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 19 October 2001 at 4:16 PM

This is pretty disturbing. Apparently, increased security at airports means that they will ban you from flying if they don't like your reading material, even if you pass through the security checkpoints and they know you don't have any weapons.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 19 October 2001 at 11:14 AM

I've been playing around with the Apple computers in the bookstore here at school. Today I even picked up an ibook brochure. I've mentioned before that I've been thinking about getting a laptop, and I'm in that mood again. The ibooks are, according to apple.com, pretty cheap, and I've heard that Apple gives you a student discount. Next time I see Gene Tien (WashU's Apple rep.), I'll have to ask him for some details.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 18 October 2001 at 8:46 PM

I just had a hostess cupcake. it was really good. Id kind of forgotten how much I liked them. when I was a kid they used to be just about my favorite things on earth. and now they sell them in vending machines for less than a dollar! no one can tell me this day isnt starting off on the right foot.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 18 October 2001 at 8:26 AM

A quick change regarding my last post. Rather than email me who you think will win the contest between michael and aaron, use the form at http://negative273.com/contest.php. (It's also linked from the features page, if you want to use it after this post has been pushed down the page.) It will automatically display the current results, which saves me a bit of work. In order to keep people honest there is a rudimentary system in place to prevent you from voting multiple times. If I have free time, this system will be improved upon, but I am both busy and lazy, so that isn't too likely. Anyway, let the voting commence.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 18 October 2001 at 1:39 AM

It feels like I'm caught in some weblog posting cross-fire here. The best course of action for me take is probably just to duck and stay down until the dust settles. I mean, this little contest won't last that long, will it?

Seriously, I have no clue who is going to win, but I am curious to see what the -273 readers have to say about this. So I was thinking, if everyone sent an email to david@negative273.com with contest as the subject and the name of the person (michael or aaron) they think will win the contest in the body of the message, I could put together the results. Perhaps our little poll will provide some motivation for the contestants to keep the posts coming, which can only benefit all of us. So send your votes to me, and unless aaron or michael object, I'll put the results up when we get a significant number of responses.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 17 October 2001 at 11:47 PM

its on.

aaron has agreed to my little competition, and now I am going to wipe the floor with him. he says hes been preparing his whole life for this, but he better be ready to go the distance, because Im prepared to last at least a week.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 17 October 2001 at 5:46 PM

ab9online is one of the best weblogs that I know of. I suggest all of you go read it. ab9online would be better, however, if that aaron kid would post more. of course, I hardly have any room to talk, so I will not offer criticism. instead I offer a public challenge. aaron beckerman of ab9online, I propose the following contest:

there will be 2 (two) Contestants: michaeldixon and Aaron Beckerman.

each Contestant must post to their respective websites at least once a day.

the first Contestant who fails to post will be the Loser; the other will be the Winner.

the Loser must pay the Winner 1 (one) Dollar.

if you accept these terms, acknowledge them on your weblog and the game will begin. you can decline, of course, but bear in mind that in doing so our readers would no doubt lose all respect for you. also, you would be turning down the easiest dollar you could ever make.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 17 October 2001 at 2:43 AM

I had something important I was going to post about here, but I can't recall exactly what it was. I think it involved rifles, though. If you think of it, send me an email.

To make up for my lack of a cohesive topic today, I bring you this. Click the link to eliminate those annoying pop-under x10 ads for the next thirty days. I've found it to be quite useful. (Link stolen from little green footballs.)

It appears that I inadvertently buried michael's return beneath a few of my posts. If you missed the post, click here to read it and click here to read his new comic.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 17 October 2001 at 12:27 AM

On the way back from UIUC this weekend, we stopped for lunch at a Wendy's. I don't go to Wendy's that often; perhaps once or twice a year. But the past five or six times I've gone I've ordered a Bacon and Cheddar baked potato. It always sounds very appetizing on the menu, and looks good on my tray, but then I take a bite and realize that I hate the way it tastes. Every time I go there I forget that I don't like the Bacon and Cheddar baked potato and order it. So if you ever go to Wendy's with me, don't let me get the Bacon and Cheddar baked potato.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 16 October 2001 at 1:47 PM

Today during my English class we had an exam. It went pretty well for me, but I don't think the guy who was sitting one row to my left and two seats in front of me could say the same. You see, he fell asleep about 10 minutes into the exam, and was still sleeping sixty-five minutes later when I left. I tried to wake him up a couple of times, but he was too far away from me for me to be able to do much to wake him. When I left I pointed him out to Dr. Rosenzweig, so maybe he woke him up. Anyway, I mentioned that he didn't do too well on the exam. When I was packing up my bag I took a look at his blue book to see how much he had gotten done. We were supposed to write two essays, and each of mine were about 6 blue book pages long. This guy had written half a sentence on the first page of hi blue book. That's all he wrote; 5 words. "In Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance." I'm thinking that won't get him too many points.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 16 October 2001 at 1:10 PM

hi. my name is michael, and I am back.

I break my long silence today to unveil a great new addition to negative273. if I might draw your attention to negative273s header, youll notice that Ive removed some old links (many people have been eager to see them go), and Ive added a new one.

the new one is "gloompuppy," a weekly comic strip that I, despite better judgement, have taken on the responsibility of writing and drawing. so far Ive only completed three strips, but Im quite proud of what Ive got so far, and rachel tells me its even developing a "buzz" on the MU campus. (actually, the quotation marks arent really fair to rachel, since she didnt actually use the word "buzz," but it still seemed appropriate to use them.)

anyway, I should mention that in addition to being a webcomic, it currently runs in the MU student news (in columbia), and I may even submit it to the cadenza, depending on what kind of feedback I get through this site. so go check it out and let me know what you think.

Comments: 0 Posted by michael on 16 October 2001 at 12:49 PM

I've added a spellchecker to -273, so you should be seeing a few less spelling errors from me. I'm going to test it out over the next week or so, and if I like the way it works, I'll add it to the guestbook.

Today was a rather long day, so I'm going to get some sleep now.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 16 October 2001 at 1:32 AM

I've just finished my first mail advisory meeting. I'm on a committee with five students and some of the CEC support staff trying to decide what direction CEC email should take. The two options we discussed were adding a web-based frontend to the current UNIX-based mail system or dropping the current system and switching to a MS Exchange server, like the b-school has. The deck is somewhat stacked against the EXchange server route, since all of the student members are opposed to it. Nonetheless, part of our group is making up a survey to see what people really want. So, if you are given the chance to fill out the survey, you should certainly do so. The rest of our group (i.e., me and Adam Lopresto) are looking at various web-based frontends for the UNIX mail system. Anyway, if you'd like to give me some feedback on CEC mail, feel free to send me an email or post to the ACM Message Board on the subject (I'm the ACM representative on the mail advisory board). I'd like some feedback before this Friday, when we have our next meeting.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 15 October 2001 at 1:43 PM

The conference this weekend was pretty cool, even if they were out of cave tickets when we got there at 10:30am on Saturday. The keynote address by Frederick P. Brooks, author of The Mythical Man Month (a rather famous text on software design), was outstanding. We also heard talks on computer viruses, forensic computing, and computer security, among other things. Sadly, they were out of conference tshirts (this year's shirt is leaps and bounds ahead of last year's in quality), but they promised to do another run and mail us our shirts, which is very cool.

We had to leave at the crack of dawn on Saturday in order to get there in time for the first talk. We easily missed that goal when we didn't leave until 30 minutes after our targeted departure time, but it didn't really matter. But getting up at 5:30am left me feeling tired all day. I'm rather surprised I didn't fall asleep while driving up to UIUC. I did fall asleep during the talk by Cap'n Crunch (a well-known phone phreaker, if phone phreakers can be considered well-known). It's not that he was boring, but he sat behind a computer while telling his stories, and I couldn't see him, so I lost interest. He's currently working on a $22,000 firewall called the CrunchBox. I wasn't really impressed with the product, which is basically a wrapper around several open source projects and a thumb-print reader.

The guy who gave the talk on viruses (his hacker name is "v1ru5") was pretty cool, even if his website sucks. He claimed that there is a concept virus that can spread via email where the attachment doesn't have to be opened in order for the virus to be activated. He further claimed that this virus would work in a variety of mail readers, including some UNIX mail readers. I have my doubts about this, but the rest of his talk was excellent.

Anyway, I need to help some 101 students now, so I'll have to save the rest of my conference comments for later. And please don't mention the Cardinals to me for the next few days. I'm still not over their game last night.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 15 October 2001 at 11:38 AM

I'm very tired from all my activities this weekend and the Cardinals are out of the playoffs, so I'm going to go to bed. I'll update all of you on the ACM conference tomorrow.

In the meantime, check out the things I added to the to the header up above and use our new guestbook to leave some feedback.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 14 October 2001 at 11:37 PM

Weird. I wrote a post last night about the conference that I'm going to, but it seems to have disappeared from the site. Anyway, I'll be at UIUC until Sunday evening attending this conference. So no more posts until I get back.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 13 October 2001 at 6:26 AM

Okay, one more post before I go. Yesterday, was actually a fairly fruitful day for me. I got some computer graphics done, Chris and I worked on our Lego robot for mobile robotics, I watched the Cardinals lose what should have been an easy win against the D-Backs, and i did some laundry.

I had trouble falling asleep last night, so I read quite a bit of The Invisible Man instead. It's a very interesting book; check it out if you haven't already read it.

I just plugged my robot into the power source to charge him up, and he started to act all crazy. Apparently we left him on overnight and drained his batteries, so now when he's turned on he just switches the motors from forward to reverese as quickly as possible. Hopefully charging him over the weekend and reloading the code will fix him. (I'm just praying we don't have to reload the p-code, which doesn't work so well for us, for some reason.) Everyone send get well thoughts in T-Bob's (the robot's) direction, please.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 13 October 2001 at 6:23 AM

It rained all day today, but it seems to have stopped now. Which is very good news, since I was begining to worry that the Cardinals game tomorrow would be effected.

Speaking of the Cardinals, did anyone see the game yesterday on Fox Family? Woody Williams was pitching an awesome game, and all the announcers could do was make excuses for why Randy Johnson was pitching a very average game. For example, at the top of the broadcast they talked for about five minutes about why the eight days rest Randy got between that game and his last would make him unstoppable. By the third inning they were talking about how the eight days rest had "clearly" affected his performance, in total contrast to their previous remarks. It was quite apparent which team they thought was going to win this game and series, and it wasn't the Cardinals. I guess they had forgotten that the Cardinals had already beaten Randy Johnson twice this season, and tied for the best record in the NL. Oh, and there is no one in broadcasting I hate more than Steve Lyons, and he was providing "color analysis." That idiot couldn't find his way out of a paper bag, much less provide any meaningful commentary about the game taking place in front of him. I just hope he isn't doing the game tomorrow.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 11 October 2001 at 11:54 PM

My interview with St. Jude Medical yesterday went pretty well, but they aren't going to be doing any hiring until the next fiscal year starts in Januray. Today I'm going to do the reading assignment for Robotics, clean up my room, buy some CDs, and then I'll write my response paper for English. That last one isn't due until a week from tomorrow, but I did I read the entire book (The Invisible Man) last night, so I might as well write a short paper while it's still fresh in my mind.

Those of you who check the playlists know that I've been listening to Alien Ant Farm a lot recently. I'm not sure why, but I really like their cover of Smooth Criminal. Anyway, they're going to be at Mississippi Nights on Tuesday, and I might go see them.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 10 October 2001 at 1:22 PM

I emailed this to myself last night to help me remember everything I need to do today, and I thought you might be interested.

9:30 - 10:00 am

      Interview with St. Jude Medical

10:00 - 11:30 am

      Chief American Writers

11:30 - 1:00 pm

      Graphics

1:00 - 1:30 pm

      Meeting with Dr. Roman about BSMS program

1:30 - 2:30 pm

      Lunch

2:30 - 4:00 pm

      Personal Finance Exam

4:00 - 5:30 pm

      Robotics

5:30 - 7:00 pm

      Dinner/Free time

7:00 - 9:30 pm

      CS101 Exam Proctoring

You might want to notice that I only 2.5 hors free between 9:30am and 9:30pm, and I have to eat during those times. Today will be a long day.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 9 October 2001 at 9:52 AM

My time today has so far been split between 101 hours, studying for my exam, and following a rather interesting thread on nickd's mailing list about senses. But all of these are unrelated to what I want to talk about right now, the fact that my robotics lab section was cancelled this week.

I checked the robotics newsgroup this morning to find that my lab had been cancelled, and everyone in my lab is supposed to show up at one of the other lab sections, both of which are later today. Well, the problem here is that I have a test during the first of these other lab sections, and I have a 101 grading session during the second one. I've arranged to miss a bit of the grading session to go to the lab, but that's not the point. When we signed up for lab sections, we picked the one that fit into our schedule. The other two are not convenient for me, hence the reason I didn't select them in the first place. If all the times were equally acceptable to everyone, why offer more than one lab in the first place?

There are two other aspects to this that bother me a lot. The first is that we wanted to demo our robot last week, but our TA wouldn't let us. If we'd been able to demo last week, none of this would be a problem. The second thing is that this is the second time out of five chances that our TA has missed a lab section. I don't know about you, but if I only showed up to my job 60% of the time, I would be fired. And the one time Chris and I tried to make an appointment with our TA to talk about our robot, he never showed up to meet with us.

As you may have guessed, I'm not too happy about this. To add to my agony, Dr. Grimm, the graphics professor posted instructions for how to do the rotate method on her website this morning (the lab is due at 10pm tonight). I spent at least five hours working on that damn method this weekend, trying to figure things out, and now the people who started late will get it done in 15 minutes. I think my grades in both of my CS classes (robotics and graphics) are alright, but I'm becoming very frustrated with them. It really sucks to know how to do something and then spend hours in the lab trying to get your program to work because 1) the lab is poorly written and contradicts itself 2) the TAs don't know how to help you and when you ask them for help, they instead go help someone else 3) when you send the professor an email, she responds with "__ is defined in the handout," even though you've searched through the handout and there is no reference to it.

The past few days have been very, very stressful. Fall Break is this weekend, so I'll hopefully have a bit of time off from this, at least for a few days.

On an unrelated note, Happy Birthday, Mom.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 8 October 2001 at 3:42 PM

I rarely visit the main page -273, and when I do load it, I never read any of the posts. What this means is that after typing up my entries in this textbox, I never see them again. Why am I telling you this? No particular reason really, I just thought you might be interested.

I spent another 3.5 hours in the CEC working on my graphics lab today. I'm pleased to inform you that my lab successfully rotates around a cow. (This being, for reasons that were not explained to me, the purpose of this lab.) Yes, that's right. I spent a combined 12 hours on a lab that lets me spin around and look at every part of this simulated cow. Let me tell you, after spending so much time on this lab, the finished product is a bit of a let-down.

This evening was devoted to preparing for my Probability & Statistics exam, which is tomorrow. I was away fom my computer for the better part of the evening, even though I was signed on to Instant Mesenger. (For those of you who don't know, my screen name is HiddenInput.) If you sent me an IM this evening -- as several people, including someone I've not spoken to before, did -- please don't hate me for not responding. I just didn't have time. You understand. Anyway, I'm going to make it up to you. If you sent me an IM tonight and failed to get a response, I will give you some Big League Chew. Yes, that's right, Big League Chew!

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 8 October 2001 at 1:42 AM

I spent eight hours in the CEC working on my graphics lab today. The lab handout and provided code contradicted each other extensively, so a good portion of my time was spent trying to figure out why the methods that we were supposed to fill in (according to the comments in the code) never got called. And why the methods we weren't supposed to fill in seemed like they needed to have bodies. And why the lab handout said we were supposed to make a subclass of the MyCamera class when none of MyCamera's methods were virtual and didn't have method bodies.

I really think the instructor and TAs need to spend a little bit more time preparing for class. The algorithm handouts we get are often error filled, the demo program never works properly, and (this one's my favorite) today the TA told us that he couldn't help us debug because he didn't understand the concepts behind the lab. Oh, and the lab descriptions are excellent examples of obfuscation.

This graphics class is based on a course taught at Brown University, and all of the notes, assignments, and labs all come from Brown. Since our professor isn't actually doing much work in course preparation, is it too much to ask her to tke five minutes and make sure the provided code doesn't have comments that contradict the lab description, proof-read the algorithm handouts she gives us, and make sure the demo (which we're supposed to refer to if we have questions about what our lab is supposed to do) at least partially works.

I'm obviously not too happy about this lab. It was supposed to be one of the easy ones, but it isn't shaping up to be all that easy. Anyway, I have an idea about how to fix my rotate method, so I'm going to head off to the CEC to see if I can get this damn thing finished tonight. I promise not to go off on a CS rant again for awhile.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 6 October 2001 at 11:02 PM

I received another email about bicylce riding and cell phone use today. One of -273's reader's found this advertisement for a device designed to let people use their cell phone while riding their bike. The email (after a bit of editing) is below.

Keep both hands on the handlebars...talk hands-free

Enjoy the convenience of your cell phone in comfort and safety while riding your bike!

Enjoy your favorite sport without sacrificing important phone calls. Now you can take and make all your calls while riding your bike. The Bicycle Hands-free clips easily onto your handlebars, providing a secure cradle for your cell phone. Simply plug the earphone/headset into your phone jack. The retractable cord feature allows you to adjust the earphone and microphone to fit your needs. Adjustable arms allow you to position your phone's touchpad at exactly the right angle. The stylish unit is functional yet even accommodates your phone's carrying case. With the hands-free system, you can keep in touch while on the go!

This product is backed by our exclusive risk-free trial. If, for any reason, you are not completely satisfied with your purchase, simply return the product within 30 days for a "No Questions Asked" refund of the purchase price (excluding shipping) or for a merchandise credit.

Bicycle Hands Free w/Earphone (Blue) .... $39.95

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 5 October 2001 at 8:36 PM

Well, I've had my MS interview and signed up for another interview on Tuesday. The Microsoft one went alright, but I probably could have done things a bit more efficiently (they had me do some coding, and sitting here now I have some ideas for how I could have improved my code). On Tuesday I'm interviewing with St. Jude Medical. They make pacemakers and stuff in LA. We'll see how that goes.

A lot of companies at the career fair weren't doing any hiring, which is kind of a bad thing for those of us looking for work. So I'm reconsidering my decision regarding the BSMS program. I sent some emails last night to get some more information about it. A lot of people seem to be giving an extra year of school some thought these days. Even michael.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 5 October 2001 at 1:15 PM

I never wear a belt, but I have about four different belts with me here at school. Tomorrow, because of the job interview and the career fair, I'm going to need to wear some nice clothes. I was making sure I had everything I need this afternoon when I discovered that I don't have a black dress belt. I used to have one. I wore it recently, but I can't find it. I have another black belt, but it is too wide to wear with nice clothes. So now I have to go buy a belt.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 4 October 2001 at 5:30 PM

There is no hot water here in Millbrook, so I just had to take a cold shower. I'm none too happy. My paper is almost done, I just need to o some proof-reading, soI'll try to fit that in between the Microsoft info session and the ACM meeting tonight. Tomorrow I have an interview with Microsoft and then I'll spend a bit of time at the job fair.

Then I start on the gobs of homework I need to get done this weekend.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 4 October 2001 at 2:20 PM

Yesterday I had planned on spending some time working on my paper for my Chief american Writers class. I managed to write, over the course of the three hours I spent on it, exactly one sentence. Consequently, I cleared some time this afternoon that I am going to devote entirely to this stupid paper. It only needs to be four pages long, and I'm taking the class pass/fail, so I should be able to get most of it written this afternoon. Then I can polish it tomorrow and turn it in on Friday.

This weekend is shaping up to be rather busy. I have a Prob Stats test and a graphics lab due on Monday, and on Tuesday I have a Personal Finance exam. I may also have an exam in that English class next week. The professor, for reasons unknown to me, is keeping the date of that exam a secret.

Tonight isn't the season preimere of the West Wing, but it will be a new episode. It's going to be a reaction to the events of Sept. 11. I'm not sure how good its going be, and I think I would rather have the season preimere.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 3 October 2001 at 11:07 AM

Yesterday I went to the Rams game with my dad. Because there had been articles in the paper about the increased security at the Dome, we arrived an hour before game time, and weren't surprised to see a huge crowd of people waiting at all the gates to get in. So we joined the crowd at the Broadway South entrance. I was not happy. For 30 minutes we stood outside in close proximity to a lot of very drunk people. Among other irritating people, in front of me was a dad who, despite repeatedly being yelled at by his wife, thought it would be funny if he (and his son, who was imitating him) tormented his daughter. Later as we approached the doors to get insdie, he tried to put his beer cup on top of a trashcan that people had already piled numerous bottles and cans on. He lacked the finesse needed to correctly place his cup, and the whole mess of cans and bottles came crashing down on the crowd, sending broken glass all over the place. That guy gets this week's idiot award.

Oh, and when we got in we discovered that the delay in getting in had nothing to do with new security measures, of which there were none. The delay was entirely due to the fact that for every two ticket-takers, who were performing their job quickly and efficiently, there was one person handing out cheap paper American flags, magnets, and a pamphlet with the lyrics to "God Bless America," "America the Beautiful," and "The Star-Spangled Banner" in it. And the lady handing things out to my line was rather clumsy at her job, which eneded up requiring each person to wait 15 to 30 seconds for her to had them all those things. Don't get me wrong, I applaud the sentiment of what they (they being an insurance company that was getting some advertising by doing this, since their name is quite prominent on both the magnet and the pamphlet. I guess they couldn't find a good palce to pu their name on the flags, thankfully) were doing, but their execution was so poor, it left me rather angry.

The game was really good though. The Rams routed the Dolphins, who were supposed to be pretty good, especially defensively. Did anyone see the game? In the third and fourth quarters, why were the Dolphins still running the ball and throwing screen passes? If they wanted to score, they really needed to throw the ball deep. That was some bad play-calling from the sidelines.

Comments: 0 Posted by david on 1 October 2001 at 9:57 AM